The Sound Of Music

The sound of music can be heard day and night on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. If you walk past Lincoln Center, you'll hear it coming from the northwest corner, from the Juilliard School of Music, just about the most demanding conservatory in the world.

It's the place that produced Itzhak Perlman, Renee Fleming, and Wynton Marsalis. It's also produced some artists you may not have heard of: Shawn Coleman, Suzanne Morello and Carlos Henriquez.

When Correspondent Morley Safer first met these students back in 1994, they were among 40 New York public high school students – trailblazers, really, - who helped change the face of Juilliard.

Before we tell you where they ended up, take a look first at where they started.

Their journey to Juilliard began when they were just 12 years old. Back then, music programs in the New York City public schools had been cut to the bone. In many schools, there was no music at all.

Juilliard was concerned about diversity. Seventy percent of its students came from Asian descent. And it found that other New York minority students could not pass the stringent entrance requirements or afford the tuition. The answer: to go looking for students with that certain spark. For them, Juilliard would be free.

Shawn Coleman was a seventh grader with a clarinet who really wanted to be an astronaut. "I hated the clarinet, and I was really bad, too," recalls Coleman.

Soon enough, he and his dreams came down to earth. "I see musicians walking with their cases proudly, with 'I am a musician,'" says Coleman. "So, you know, that's what I want to be. I want to be a musician, too."

So did Carlos Henriquez, who came Juilliard from a tough neighborhood in the South Bronx. He started on the classical guitar, and then switched to the bass. He says that music was a ticket to fame: "That's what I want, fame. Help others, and see what I can get out of music."

Harold Banarsee plays the trumpet, and his hero is Wynton Marsalis. "When I started coming to Juilliard, people used to call me show-off and they were jealous and all that stuff," says Banarsee.

What does he think about when he hears Marsalis playing? "I think if I practice, I could be just as good as him or any other trumpet player," says Banarsee.

But when he said that, he had no idea that he'd been chosen to take a master class taught by Marsalis.

A 100 Saturdays at Juilliard made an enormous difference in the way they sounded. It also changed their thinking.

How important is music in their life?

"It's very important. It's my life. It's my future," says student Rosie Mora.

The students Safer talked to all want a career in music. But how many make it to the top? And where will they be 10 years from now?

"Philharmonic and chamber music," says Coleman.

"I'd like to play with the Boston Symphony," says Morello.

"I see myself as a celebrity. My band's out there playing, CDs cassettes. And if it doesn't work out, teach at Juilliard," says Banarsee. "I think everyone here is going to make it to the top."

"I can't say I'm going to make it…well, something inside says that I'm going to make it. I can make it," says Henriquez.

A little more than a decade after that conversation, Henriquez is now the bass player with Marsalis' band. It began just two years after he finished Juilliard, when he was 17. "I love that gig," he says. "Yeah, 17 when I first started playing with him. It was a fundraiser in Orlando, Fla. I was scared, didn't know what was going on." Last May, 60 Minutes went back to Juilliard and met again with Henriquez and some of his classmates, Morello, Mora, Banarsee, and Coleman.

After the Music Advancement Program, Coleman went on to four years of college at Juilliard. Today, he lives in Boulder, Colo., where he is getting his master's degree in music. Once a month, he travels to Vice President Dick Cheney's old high school in Casper, Wyo., where the boy who dreamed of being a musician is now principal clarinet with the Wyoming Symphony.

It's not exactly Carnegie Hall. "Music – it's such a key part of who you are. You go into music for the love of music," says Coleman. "You don't expect any sort of financial reward. And you also have to open your mind to the idea that you're gonna have to do other things."

This means a day job selling used cars at Smooth Motors.

Morello went on to get her master's in viola and is now teaching in a public school in New York. Her goal 10 years ago was to be with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. "I sure did. I sure did. Obviously, my views have changed. My goals have changed," says Morello. "I went to graduate school for a performance degree to discipline myself to become a better teacher. And I think that's what I've done."

She says, however, that no matter what else she does, music will always be a part of her life: "It's inherent. It's part of me. It's how I became what I am. It's a very powerful thing. Changed all of our lives, you know."

After Juilliard, Mora went on to get her degree in music education from New York University, and she just finished her master's from the University of Vermont.

What would have happened to her if she hadn't gone to Juilliard? "I'd probably be in Iraq right now," says Mora. "Before I got involved with Juilliard, I didn't see college as an option. I never thought I would be able to afford it. So, I thought my only option into getting any kind of profession was joining the Army."

Banarsee didn't think he had many options either. But that all changed at Juilliard. "It was sort of the spark that lit the fuse, you know. And it put a lot of things into perspective," he says. "I developed an appreciation for music that I probably would not have attained if I didn't go to Juilliard."

Though he has not yet achieved the celebrity he craves, he did go on to get his degree in music education and is now teaching at a public high school in New York City.

The Music Advancement Program was the brainchild of Joe Polisi, the president of Juilliard. Its success has helped change the ethnic make-up of Juilliard, something, Polisi says, that was long overdue. "We have not been as diverse a community as we should have been. And we've worked very hard to change that, so we have a high percentage of African-American students, of Latino students."

"Juilliard has this extraordinary reputation in the world as having just the highest standards. Have those standards changed?" asks Safer.

"Absolutely not. In fact they've heightened. But your question of course goes to the heart of the fact that if you do try to have ethnic diversity, you lower standards," says Polisi. "And that's nonsense. That's absolute, total nonsense."

Debbie Shufelt has been teaching MAP students since the beginning. How has the program changed over the last decade? "It's gone through a lot of sort of different transitions," she says. "But I think the good thing about it is it really still has the interest of drawing people who were maybe not exposed to this kind of music, drawing them into it."

Since Safer's first visit, enrollment has almost tripled, and parents now pay a minimal fee. But that investment in music does pay off.

What does Shufelt think Juilliard did for these kids? "I think their lives probably took quite a different direction than they would have otherwise. I really do think that," says Shufelt. "Music is kind of an amazing thing, how it chooses you or however you wanna put it. It's amazing how you wake up every day and you really have to do it."

"If I come back 10 years from now, what do you think I'm gonna find?" asks Safer.

"I'm not falling into that trap again," says Coleman.

"I know," says Morello, laughing.

"What'd you say last time? Remind me what you said last time," asks Safer.

"I think at that point, I wanted to be the principal clarinet at the New York Philharmonic," says Coleman.

"Yeah, I think that's what you said," says Morello. "I was the principal violist in the Boston Symphony."

"I'm sure I said something about – that I'm going to be sitting right here with you talking to you about what I'm doing now," says Henriquez.

"I guess that's your answer?" says Morello, laughing.

"Yeah," says Henriquez.

"Good answer, good answer," says Coleman.

"Good answer," adds Morello.